


bring it home

by 26stars



Series: Fall Prompts 2020 [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU Meeting, American high schools are wild sometimes, Bonfire, F/F, High School AU, Homecoming Week, Mud Volleyball, Parade, Powderpuff Football, Student Council!Bobbi, Yearbook photographer!Melinda, school competitions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26698867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: Melinda May hates Homecoming Week because of how busy it ends up being for her, the person who had nothing to do with the week's planning but is required to be at nearly every event.She keeps noticing the same blonde freshman at every event though. And that makes watching the week through a camera a lot more fun.For the fall prompt: MayBobbi+Homecoming
Relationships: Melinda May/Bobbi Morse
Series: Fall Prompts 2020 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931209
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10
Collections: Women of the MCU





	bring it home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentmmayy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmmayy/gifts).



> I had one of these roles in high school. I think you can guess which one.

Homecoming week was a good week for a few select groups in the school, but if there was any group of students who didn’t look forward to the annual mayhem, Melinda guessed it was every photographer on the yearbook staff.

Her 5A high school in a suburban town certainly did their best to do up the week well, but for the sake of herself and her fellow photographers who were obligated to be present at every event on the activities calendar, Melinda wished that the student council was just a little less enthusiastic. Homecoming week meant running not only all over campus but also all over town to photograph special events, everything from daily dress-up days to a hall decorating competition to a mud volleyball tournament to the powderpuff football game to the downtown parade to the back-field bonfire to the gymnasium pep rally to the actual football game to the off-campus dance…

Melinda really should have been better at delegating tasks, but she was the editor in charge of the photography department, and if another photographer couldn’t be there, then it was her responsibility to be. And seeing as most of the staff photographers were involved in other extracurricular activities and half of them couldn’t even drive yet and still were at the mercy of the school bus schedule, no one was quite as “free” to be at things as Melinda.

So she showed up that Monday for the after-school Hall Deck challenge, where each grade was given a flat hour to assemble a section of the hallway with decorations that went with the year’s homecoming theme (High Seas Homecoming…). Everyone had the same budget and time limit, but they could have as many helpers as would show up, so Melinda wasn’t surprised to see most of the pom and cheer teams, student council members, and all said groups’ friends on hand to actually help and assemble their planned 3D murals. She tried to stay out of everyone’s way and rotated between the sections of the halls to photograph the tension and teamwork, but she told herself that really, she could wait until the next day to photograph the finished products—they’d be left up all week, after all.

A half hour into the event, as she was packing up her camera near the freshman class’s hall section, Melinda gazed absently one of the girls who was standing back from the wall, calling out directions to her fellow freshman (who had the smallest turnout of helpers by far but were actually putting together one of the more impressive installations). Melinda was surprised to notice that said leader was taller than most of the boys, but she was more impressed that not a single person was arguing with the girl or giving her attitude for being boss, just jumping to do exactly as she said.

_Sometimes it feels good to have someone around who knows what they’re doing…_

Melinda kept an eye on the blonde while she disassembled her camera, and eventually the girl seemed to feel her gaze, glancing over at Melinda.

As their eyes locked, she smiled and winked.

Melinda checked over her shoulder to see if the gesture was for someone behind her, but there wasn’t anyone there. When she looked back, the blonde was still smiling at her, a nice smile that didn’t have any braces to shadow it, but Melinda couldn’t quite mirror the gesture. Sure, the girl was tall and gorgeous, but she was also a freshman, so Melinda just gave her a skeptical look as she snapped her camera bag shut.

“How’s our competition looking?” the blonde called to her, and Melinda shrugged as she turned away, headed for the school’s rear exit near the student parking lot.

“Best of luck. Freshmen never win anything though.”

Except this year, they did.

School administration judged the Hall Deck competition that morning before classes started and announced the winner during the morning announcements, and everyone in Melinda’s junior class homeroom booed the announcement. Melinda had her camera out, snapping pictures of some of her classmates who had turned out in costume for the day’s theme (pirated films…so everyone was dressed as movie characters), but she caught the riot on camera too. Intrigued, most of the school made an excuse to walk by the freshmen’s section of the hall that day, and after comparing (and photographing) all the end products, Melinda had to admit that the freshmen were easily the winners this time.

She killed time at a café near campus that afternoon before heading back onto the grounds and to an undeveloped area behind the softball field which had been designated for the afternoon’s mud-volleyball tournament.

And there was the blonde again.

Melinda only stuck around for the first hour of the tournament, since once she’d captured all the players once there wasn’t really much point in sticking around to see everyone get progressively dirtier in dimmer light. It was already getting cold—Melinda couldn’t imagine being wet and covered in mud too. The freshman girl from the day before played in the last matchup—one that had a few of the school’s actual volleyball team on it. They played well together, but slippery mud had a way of evening the odds a bit, so their opponents still managed to get a few points in. The blonde was quickly covered to her hips in mud, but she was grinning for her entire match, even when a bad landing sent her skidding and covered the rest of her in muck.

For the first time, Melinda thought the game might look just a little fun.

The next afternoon had a powderpuff football game scheduled, and Melinda noticed that this year the teams must have been organized by one of the teachers, because there was a spread of ages and cliques on both sides. It was flag football of course, but the volume of the mostly male crowd was almost as loud as if it were a boys’ football game.

And once again, there was the blonde freshman, a defensive player on the blue team, her long legs and height making her a great defender on the white team’s wide receiver. Melinda got a great shot of both girls leaping for a pass downfield…

The blonde turned the pass into an interception.

When she dumped all her pictures into the computer in the Yearbook classroom the next day, Melinda’s writing partner for the Homecoming spread asked her who the blonde was, since that shot was obviously going on the page, and he’d need to interview the girl for the caption. When Melinda didn’t know her name, they turned to their fellow staff members for help.

“Her? Oh, that’s Bobbi Morse,” Jemma said helpfully when called over to the computer. “She’s amazing.”

“She’s a freshman, right?” Melinda’s partner asked, typing the girl’s name in his phone.

“Yeah. Her real name’s Barbara though, if you can’t find her in the school directory under Bobbi.”

That afternoon, Melinda had staked out a decent spot on the downtown area’s main drag in order to photograph the homecoming parade as it passes, and she was only a little surprised to spot Bobbi on one of the floats—the one made by Student Council.

_Ah. StuCo._

That explained the over-involvement.

Thursday night before the game was always the outdoor pep rally and bonfire, and after all the performances were done, the whole school trooped over to the space behind the football field where the pile of scrap wood had been set up for the event. Melinda was bundled up against the October cold, bouncing on the balls of her feet and hoping someone would just hurry up and light the fire so she could snap a few pictures and then go home—her homework had been piling up that week, and the last thing she was going to do was fall behind for the sake of watching some junk burn.

“Hey. You’re everywhere this week.”

Melinda looked over and was this time plenty surprised to see the blonde—Bobbi—standing near her elbow, a blue scarf bundled around her neck and tucked into a black jacket.

“So are you,” Melinda commented. “Are you falling behind in homework like me too?”

The girl scoffed, a puff of mist in the dark, cool air. “I’m a freshman. What homework?”

“Well, lucky you,” Melinda muttered, watching the vice principal lurch around, clearing the immediate area around the upcoming fire. “Congratulations on hall deck, the volleyball tournament, _and_ the powderpuff game. You’re building quite a resumé this week.”

“Garnering support for future campaigns, making sure everyone learns my name,” Bobbi said with a grin, and Melinda couldn’t quite tell if she was kidding. “So what’s your name, Yearbook Girl?”

“Melinda,” she answered, noticing the principal fiddling with a lighter on the far side of the junk pile.

“Well, what’s the next assignment you’re photographing?” the girl asked. “I’ll make sure and catch you there and we can call it a week.”

Melinda huffed, still bouncing a little to stay warm. “Someone else is taking care of the school rally and the game tomorrow,” she said. “I was the only one free to go to the dance who wasn’t already going to party.”

“Hmm,” Bobbi hummed, absentmindedly removing her scarf and wrapping it around Melinda’s neck. “I hadn’t made up my mind if I was going or not—some upperclassmen girls had told me it was kind of a non-event.”

“Well, I don’t know what kind of girl wants to go dance with a sweaty boy who just played a football game, but I’m not one of them,” Melinda muttered, thankful for the dimness just in case she was blushing.

“Because he’s sweaty or because he’s a boy?”

Melinda gave the girl a sharp, skeptical look, but she just cocked her head with a smile.

“This is me unsubtly trying to figure out of you like girls, or you know, like girls too. And whether I’ve got a chance if I were to ask you to be my working date to the dance.”

Melinda let out a bit of the breath she was holding. “All that’s working against you right now is the fact that you’re a freshman. Everything else is in your favor.”

Bobbi smiled. “I can work with that.”

The girl leans in and kisses her, a swift but meaningful peck on the lips that Melinda has time to lean away from but chooses not to.

“Did that change any part of your opinion?” Bobbi asked with a mischievous grin when she pulled away.

Melinda almost missed the shot of the lighting of the fire a minute later.

Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> Every single one of these events happened at my high school.
> 
> Over a decade down the road, a lot of that seems just wild to me.


End file.
